Gotcha Day

What, you might be wondering, is gotcha day?  Well, in the adoptive family world, it's the day the adoption becomes final or the day we officially gotcha!  Gotcha day tends to mean more to families that adopt older children (or at least families that don't have custody of the child from birth), but it still means a lot to us and I hope we are able to celebrate it in the future with a family outing such as a zoo trip or a fun dinner.

The best way to describe the days leading up to gotcha day is that it was a sunny day where we were, but their was a dark cloud looming on the horizon that could cause a storm at any minute.  The moment the judge signed our final decree of adoption, the clouds disappeared and the sun shone a little brighter than before.  Even though she hadn't given us any reason to believe she would, I had a fear that we would arrive at our final court date only to find out that birth mom had changed her mind.  Luckily, that didn't happen and we can breathe a little easier now knowing that Joseph is officially a Parks.

Since our court date was at 9:00 a.m. in Lawton (three hours from Stillwater), we decided to stay the night before at my dad's house rather than leaving the house super early with a one month old baby.  I didn't do the best job documenting the day with pictures, but here's a quick recap of one of my top five best days ever.

Our first officially a Parks family photo (Sam had already changed out of his court clothes into much more comfortable driving home clothes).

While we were at my dad's house, Joseph got to ride in a tractor (actually, it was a swather) for the first time (does it count if he slept through the whole ride?). 

On our drive home, we decided to take our time and enjoy the first completely care free day we have had in a while.  Since Sam had never tried a Meer's burger, we thought that would be a fun place to eat lunch.  When we got to the Wichita Mountains, it was still a little too early for lunch and Joseph was starting to get hungry, so we stopped at Medicine Park to enjoy the scenery and give Joseph a bottle.  While we were there, Sam broke out the camera and started taking pictures.

We even sat up the tripod for a couple of family pictures.

After a delicious lunch, we moseyed on up to Oklahoma City where we stopped by the fertility clinic to introduce Joseph to the doctors and nurses that played a major role in our journey to have a family.  Even though they weren't the final step in us having a family, they were still very excited for us.  More than once they told us that their goal is a baby and they are excited however we get that baby.  I really wish I would have thought to take some pictures while we were there.

For an afternoon snack, we felt it appropriate to stop at Wendy's for frosties since Wendy's founder Dave Thomas was adopted thus they are strong supporters of adoption (it doesn't hurt that frosties are good!).

After our frosties, we made a quick stop at the mall to order new glasses for Sam then headed home.  All in all, it was a pretty amazing day!

Sip and See, Pampers for Poker, and a Manly Baby Shower

Since Joseph has joined our family, he has been showered with love.  When he was three weeks old, my sister hosted a sip and see for him in my hometown.  For those of you wondering what a sip and see is, it is pretty much a baby shower after the baby is born.  Normally, sip and see's are for a friend that has moved out of town or a second child, but they work for adoptions too.  It was fun to go back home and share Joseph with so many people that were in my life as I was growing up.  We didn't get a lot of pictures, but here are a few.  As you can see, cousin Bryar was there and both babies were passed around most of the afternoon.

On that same Saturday, after we returned home from the sip and see, one of Sam's poker buddies hosted Pampers for Poker.  The guys normally have a $5-10 buy in, but decided to bring diapers and formula instead.  I don't have any pictures from the event (for some reason I wasn't invited), but here is the pile that they were so excited to carry down to our house (after the game, they came to our house to hang out on the back porch).  When Joseph and I woke up for a middle of the night feeding they enthusiastically showed me the treats then took turns holding Joseph (grown men holding a baby unprompted by their wives is awesome).

Later in the week, Sam's co-workers asked me to bring Joseph over for a shower.  It was during their lunch hour so they ordered pizza.  During lunch, this cake pan was sitting in the table.

I assumed it contained a cake.  I was wrong.  Apparently this guy from the history channel is a big joke around there so they made Joseph a onesie with his picture on it.  I can't wait until he's big enough to wear it!

It's Been a Month Already?!?!

Wow!  I can't believe it's already been a month.  And yet, this has been a long 30 days (tomorrow is the actual 30 day mark!).  We're so glad that Joseph joined our family!  Words can't express the joy and love I feel when I look at him.

He quickly learned Sam and my voices and turns his head to find us when we speak.  He has a strong neck (he's pretty much been lifting his head since birth), and has almost rolled from his back to stomach on multiple occasions (just yesterday, Sam went into the bedroom to check on him and asked me if I had laid him down on his side because that's how he was sleeping. {I really wish he would wait on this milestone!}).  Although he isn't "cooing," he is making noises that aren't crying :).  Joseph no longer hates baths, but I wouldn't say he loves them either.  So far, he has a few nicknames including Joe, Lil Joe, Broseph, and Trey (because he's the third "Joe"), but I still prefer to call him Joseph. 

Joseph - 1 Month

This first month has surfaced some emotions I wasn't expecting.  I think the toughest time was when I realized that if Aubrey were living, Joseph wouldn't be in our lives.  We've always wanted to adopt (we thought it would be great to have two biological then two adopted), but it hit me that Aubrey would just now be turning two and, if she were here, we would be trying for baby number two, not knowing that adoption was our next step. It's hard to wish for one child over the other; thankfully, we don't have to choose between the two because God made that choice for us.  For now, we will be content raising Joseph knowing that our family will be whole again someday.

Proof Joseph Was Destined to be a Cowboy

I like to call this his "go pokes" stretch.  He's been doing it since birth, it's just hard to catch on film.  Way to go, son!

Joseph's Newborn Pictures

Because I have had many people ask about them, here are a few of not all of Joseph's newborn pictures (he's just so cute and Heidi did such and amazing job that I have a hard time narrowing it down).  We ended up doing both a newborn session and a family session.  The result was a lot of great, frame worthy pictures.

 

And last, but not least (because I like to keep it real).

A Good Ole Fashion Shrimp Boil

This post should have been written a while ago (about four weeks, to be exact), but we've been a little busy around the Parks' house.  Oh well, here it goes.

For a while now, Sam has been wanting to host a shrimp boil.  We finally decided to go for it, ordered a hundred pounds of shrimp, and invited a bunch of friends over.  To all my Cajun friends, please ignore the Okies as we try to recreate one of your traditions.

Shrimp ~ check

Seasonings ~ check

Beverages ~ check

Friends ~ check (I don't have a picture of everyone as people were coming and going all day)

Many of our friends had never been to an event like this and were a little surprised when they learned that we would be dumping the food on the table we had set up in the yard. 

Luckily, they were able to overcome the "unusual" dining conditions and enjoy.

After dinner, the guys moved inside to watch a UFC fight.

While the women folk stayed outside for pony rides,

fun with the water hose,

and begging dogs.

In all, we only ate 20 pounds!  You read that right, we only ate 20 of the 100 pounds of shrimp we ordered.  Luckily, we had a back up plan to help us get rid of a little more and we enjoy eating shrimp.

So, what do you do when your friends don't eat enough shrimp?  Call in the professionals... football players that is!  The guys on either side of Sam are signed to play with the Washington Redskins this fall and happened to come home the Sunday after the boil on a training camp break.  We fired everything up and cooked another 20 pounds.  Can you believe the six of us ate pretty much as much as everyone on Saturday combined!

Joseph's Homecoming

Joseph was released from the hospital on Sunday, May 20th.  Since we were unable to schedule the initial court date on that day (for obvious reasons), we stayed the night at my dad's house and went to court on Monday morning.  As soon as our court appearance was over, we packed up and headed to Stillwater.  After a quick stop to visit my mom in Oklahoma City (she broke her leg on Sunday...), we were finally home.  As we were driving home, Heidi (neighbor, good friend, dog sitter extraordinaire) called and asked if we would like for her to come down and take pictures of our arrival home.  Of course, we said yes.  When we finally pulled up to our house, we found many of our neighbors and friends in our front yard along with our dogs and balloons.  Wow, talk about a homecoming!

Sam and Joseph were excited to finally be headed home!

How pretty is Miss Bella with her big, blue bow?!

Rufus got in on the bow action too!  I thought the bows were such a sweet touch.

Heidi put balloons and a stat sign in our front yard.  The pink balloon is for big sis :)

My co-workers put balloons and a welcome sign in our house.  I guess I need to do a better job hiding the extra key ;)

The cherry on top was our decorated mantle.  Heidi knows that I like to decorate it for various holidays, so she decorated it for Joseph's arrival.  The gas pump and truck will be making their way to his room when we get it finished (we're working on it... slowly, but surely).